Day 37 - A Farm With No Name
The fog of the acquisition slowly began lifting. The farm was ours. The boxes were unpacked (well, most of them). We had connected with a contractor and were put on the schedule to start a kitchen renovation. The pile of treasures from the previous owner was gone. We had found a restoration partner and a general guideline for first steps. While we still weren’t sure what we were going to actually do with the farm, we had realized that we had plenty of time to make those decisions because we had plenty of work before those decisions would even need to be made.
What we didn't have was a name.
But that was about to change.
I wish I had an inspirational story about the moment the name was born, but quite honestly, I don't even remember. I do know that it was my wonderful wife who gets all the credit. The name was created around the time that we decided to create a Limited Liability Corporation, or LLC, for the farm. This would allow us to turn our farm into a small business, even if we weren't sure what that business was yet. Part of the application paperwork required a name. Dargatz Farm was easy, but bland and generic. We needed something catchy and fun. We knew that animals and nature camps were likely a part of our future so we wanted the name to be family-friendly, playful, and memorable.
That first fall at the house, our family found joy and excitement in observing a sandhill crane pair in our big backyard. Observations like these solidified our goal of improving the habitat for the plants and animals that had already lived there, would pass through there, or might hopefully be attracted to moving there. Our farm would be centered around nature, so it needed a nature-esque name. Located off a more highly traveled road (Plainview Road), we knew our farm also had to have a name that would potentially intrigue passersby. Throw in the fact that I am a sucker wordplay, and my wife’s suggestion was love at first sound.
Ladies and gents, I present to you the Dargatz Family Farm: Craneview on Plainview.
